News: 20-26 March 2017

A Current Affair’s “ADHD breakthrough”: Bona fide news or unethical advertising?:
Vitamin and nutritional supplement company, Blackmores, has been in trouble in China recently, reportedly incurring an AUD 65,000 fine after some of its marketing material was found to have breached Chinese “Truth in Advertising” laws.

Herbal Remedies: A look at the National Institute of Complementary Medicine – Chinese medicine, alternative facts and endangered species.

We must look harder at complementary medicine, not away: Dr Harvey has spent eight months following up complaints about AMHC and ended up entangled in a bureaucratic web, showing how ill-regulated the system outside the TGA is. The idea that Swisse should be further liberated from adhesion to science is alarming. Instead, the regulation should be simplified, streamlined and tightened and given real teeth.

Scope of practice largely undefined: Most people working in medicine are familiar with the term “scope of practice”, but many of us may not have thought much about how guidelines are developed or regulated.